A RUSSIAN man has been crowned world champion in the novelty sport of chess boxing, a game that requires equal skill at moving pawns and throwing punches.

Mathematics student Nikolai Sazhin, 19, competing under the name "The President'' knocked out a 37-year-old German policeman Frank Stoldt, who served as a peacekeeper in Kosovo until recently.

The loser said he was simply too punch-drunk to fend off checkmate.

"I took a lot of body-blows in the fourth round and that affected my concentration. That's why I made a big mistake in the fifth round: I did not see him coming for my king,'' he said.

Berlin is home to the world's biggest chess boxing club with some 40 members and it is in an old freight station here that the two men settled the matter early yesterday.

The match began over a chess board set up on a low table in the middle of a boxing ring.

Stripped to the waist, wearing towels around their shoulders and headphones playing the lulling sound of a moving train to drown out the baying crowd, the men played for four minutes. Then off came their reading glasses and on went the gloves and the mouthguards.

For three minutes they beat each other and then, when the bell went, the chess board was back in the ring and they picked up the gentlemanly game where they had left off.

"This is the hard part, you are out of breath but you have to keep your wits about you,'' said David Steppeler, a 33-year-old instructor at the local chess boxing club.

"It is especially hard for the one who has to play first. He can easily make a false move, and in chess this is fatal. So in training we toughen people by making them do push-ups between every two chess moves.''

A chess boxing match consists of six rounds of chess and five in the ring but it can also end suddenly in knockout or checkmate.

Alternatively one of the players can be disqualified for taking too long to make his move in the chess rounds or breaking the boxing rules.

The weekend saw two matches apart from the world title bout and some of the competitors might have felt equally at home in a MENSA club meeting. One had a doctorate in biochemistry, another held a degree in political science and two were teachers.

The best in the world of chess boxing score somewhere between 1700 and 2000 points on the ELO chess rating system - putting them on a par with those who perform well in the sport at club level.

Perhaps fittingly, the sport had its beginnings in a comic strip by the French author Enki Bilal, titled Equator Cold that hit shelves in 1992.

The last work in Bilal's The Nikipol Trilogy features a blood-stained chess boxing battle set in an apocalyptic city in 2034.

In 2003, the young Dutch artist Iepe Rubingh decided to bring it all to life, but with less brutality, and organised the first match.

"But the way we do it is not as dark as it was in the comic strip. For me the thing is to channel your violence, to control it. Hence the marriage between boxing and chess,'' said Rubingh, who is the president of the international federation of chess boxing.

When inexperienced chess players sit down to play against experts, they probably wonder what it is that makes the experts so good that it seems they are almost playing a different game. New research suggests that one difference is that the experts use more of their brains.

In a study in the current issue of the journal PLoS One, a team of scientists in Germany showed experts and novices simple geometric objects and simple chess positions and asked the subjects to identify them. Reaction times were measured and brain activity was monitored using functional M.R.I. scans. On the identification of the geometric objects, the subjects performed the same, showing that the chess experts had no special visualization skills. When the subjects were shown the chess positions, the experts identified them faster.

Focusing on an element of an earlier study on pattern and object recognition by chess experts, the researchers had expected to see parts of the left hemispheres of the experts’ brains — which are involved in object recognition — react more quickly than those of the novices when they performed the chess tasks. But the reaction times were the same.

What set the experts apart was that parts of their right brain hemispheres — which are more involved in pattern recognition — also lit up with activity. The experts were processing the information in two places at once.

The researchers also found that when the subjects were shown the chess diagrams, the novices looked directly at the pieces to recognize them, while the experts looked on the middle of the boards and took everything in with their peripheral vision.

One of researchers, Merim Bilalic, a cognitive psychologist at the University of Tübingen in Germany, said in an interview that the way the experts’ brains handled the chess tasks was more efficient. The study also showed that expertise is an acquired skill, not an innate one. “It tells you a very sobering message,” he said. “It tells you there are no shortcuts to expertise.”

In another study, reported Friday in Science, researchers at the Riken Brain Science Institute in Japan sought to discover which regions of the brain gave experts in shogi, a game similar to chess, their insights.

The scientists recruited beginning, intermediate and professional players. The subjects were shown different types of shogi positions and problems as well as chess diagrams, Chinese chess diagrams and photographs. They were asked to answer questions about each image and to solve some of the shogi positions, and their answers were timed.

The shogi experts reacted no more strongly to the chess and Chinese chess diagrams than amateurs, indicating that their expertise was highly specialized.

As in the German study, the subjects’ brain activity was monitored using functional M.R.I. scans. The researchers found that there were two regions of the professionals’ brains that were excited consistently when they were asked to solve the shogi problems.

One was the precuneus, which is in the superior parietal lobule, where perception and high-level thinking occur. The other area was the caudate nucleus, which is in the subcortical region.

The same areas were activated in the intermediate players’ brains only when they were familiar with the patterns and had a reasonably good idea of how to solve the problems. The same areas were almost never activated in the brains of the beginners.

The significant role of the caudate nucleus was, at least on its surface, surprising because it is part of the basal ganglia, which, the researchers write, “is thought to be responsible for the formation and execution of habit” and for “goal directed behavior.” Put another way, idea generation in the caudate nucleus is “quick and implicit,” as opposed to conscious.

So, it seems, becoming a good chess or shogi player and wanting to win is habit-form

I'm actually looking into starting playing chess with my sister's group. Problem is: I'm pretty horrible. I need to learn some skills and fast. I know there's a whole science to it and it's incredibly overwhelming when I've been doing my research... any suggestions? Should I be studying distinct moves or try to find my own style of playing?

I haven't played chess in quite some time. I used to play in JHS, HS and College. I was never any good, just slightly above the average... USCF rated ~1500-1600. Most of my friends were experts 1900+ or Masters 2000+. One was a chess prodigy and learned from Jackie Collins, who also taught Bobby Fischer. They never formally taught me, just showed me stuff, also played loads and loads of games with them. Always got my butt kicked.

The masters were able to play 'blindfold' chess... they need not look at the board and can play the whole game in their head... you just have to tell them your movie... they also could play 'speed' chess (many many different names for this... but you use a chess clock and if you run out of time before you checkmate your opponent or s/he runs out of time, and they 'call your flag' you lose). Standard games were 5 mins apiece, against the masters, they were able to spot all the 'fishes' (easy victims who cannot even keep afloat) 5 to 1... meaning they have 1 min and you get 5. A few parks in NYC have chess tables set up and you pay 1 or 2 dollars (may have went up, or depends on the park) a game... sometimes side bets abound.

Anyway, if you are able to learn from books, you can start with some books first before actually paying for lessons... like the MA or anything you want to learn/do/practice, it's much better to have a capable instructor teach you, but partly like the MA, you have to put in the flight time too and play to play, play to recognize patterns (opening, mating, advantageous exchanges, command position/board space, endgame, etc)... if you play enough, you get to a point that you won't 'hang' pieces (lose pieces stupidly by giving them away free)... unlike the MA, there are loads of chess programs or standalone games that can help you sharpen up your skills as well as teach you some basics.

I started with 2 books: Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess and My 60 Memorable Games by Fischer... 1st book is great for beginners, and 2nd book, helps you how a chess master plays inspiring chess... how to grind out a win with only a pawn advantage, etc. 1st book shows you a chessboard, and you are told how many moves you have to play to gain some kind of advantage. Chapters include Forks, Skewers, Mate in x amount of moves, etc. Bruce Pandoflini had some readable books on basics for beginners as well. Sure there are loads more.

I don't know if there are free chess sites which instruct but you can get the basics from a book as well as a chess program. If you come across a site, by all means go for it, just wanted to mention that another viable way to learn is via books, local libraries are full of how-to books if you don't want to buy the books. The NY Times, every tuesday in the Science section (section C) will have a column on chess... it analyzes some recent game played by masters or grandmasters... really helps to see strategy... may not go over the openings all that much, columnist probably presumes you know the openings a bit, but for middlegame and strategy and tactics, can help sharpen up your game.

My general tips for new players:

1) Learn how each piece moves

2) Learn the special moves of 'en passant' and 'castling'

3) Clear the board, learn how to mate with only: a) King and 2 Rooks vs King (easiest) b) King and Queen vs King (easy) c) King and Rook vs King (easy to medium difficulty) d) King and 2 Bishops vs King (harder) e) King and Knight and Bishop vs King (hardest, at least for me) f) King and Pawn (any pawn except A or H pawns) vs King (hard)

4) Once you understand how to mate, it gets your mind to thinking ahead, when there are other pieces (which are really obstacles to your objective, like Trapping in MA, clear the obstacle!) which are in your way to a mating attack... gets you to set up plans... or at the very least, set you up for an advantageous combination ending with some material gain for you either in pawn/pieces or position.

5) Have some idea of pawn structure... many beginners if they have no move in mind, and want to play a waiting move will play a pawn move... pawns cannot move back, therefore pawn structure is changed and may be weakened. Learn how to create a 'passed pawn' -- this is really important, coupled this with knowing how to mate with King and Queen vs King, you have some idea then to promote that passed pawn.

6) Like BJJ, learn one opening for King pawn (aka open game), one for Queen pawn (closed game), learn one defense for KP and one defense for QP... a general book on openings should help... if you get really serious about your chess, there are countless books on specific openings as well as specific variations/lines within a specific opening.

7) Regarding position... command the center is usually best... much like striking, learn how to deploy your pieces so as to give you control of the center as well as be able to help you attack... one chess saying comes to mind... "A knight on the rim is dim"... knights as well as other pieces generally have little influence if they are on the edge of the board (A and H files)

Loads more I can write about... sorry for my rambling thoughts...sorry for the lack of cohesiveness. Also, just keep in mind, I was no expert, not even class B player, was class D at best (iirc that was 1500-1600).

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Guro C, that is awesome about your son beating you. One of the proudest moments a parent can have is when their children can beat them at something, especially if you know you didn't take it easy on them. My 7 yr old son has yet to do it, he has given up on chess against me for now... my 9 yr old daughter sometimes beats me in Connect Four!

Regarding style of play - if you are offensive in nature, learn a KP opening as white, as Black, learn the Sicilian Defense against 1 e4... as Black vs 1 d4, learn some sharp defenses like the Benoni Defense. Problem for beginners is learning the openings, there are literally 20-25 moves in opening lines and the variations of the 'if he plays this, then I play that' can get deep. My advice for beginners, don't get bog down by opening lines, just understand a little about them, play to work on your strategy... much like BJJ, work for position first, learn to forward your game by gaining small advantages and over the course of the game, if you don't blunder, you will be able to capitalize on your advantages.

An invaluable piece of advice if you are serious about chess, learn chess notation, not just to read and follow the books, but to write down your game and you can analyze where you went wrong... with a chess program, you can take back moves and try a different move instead... with human opponents, you generally won't have that option. Best to learn notation, and analzye your game later.

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Regarding Chinese chess, I played a little, understood how to play, how pieces moved, but with my chess background, I was better than a beginner, but nowhere able to play to win against a halfway-experienced player.... IIRC it was way easier to stalemate in Chinese Chess than Chess. Learned Shogi (japanese chess) but my CC was better than shogi.

Go was hard for me, I didn't play much and ultimately, IMO Go is harder to master than Chess, therefore if you really want to develop your analytical skills and foreplanning and visualization, there is no better boardgame than Go.... trumps chess easily in my book in those respects.

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"A good stickgrappler has good stick skills, good grappling, and good stickgrappling and can keep track of all three simultaneously. This is a good trick and can be quite effective." - Marc "Crafty Dog" Denny

Following up on my 'style of play' comments, IMO best to learn the basics of the game before worrying about memorizing an opening... learn how to mate, recognize you are under attack, don't 'hang' pieces... set up attacks to net you some advantage, think ahead 2-3 moves, once you are at that level, then perhaps learn an opening.

Part of playing chess is not handing over your pieces to your opponent... sometimes it's not your opponent beating you, it's you beating yourself by giving away pieces for free... if you are making a sacrifice attack, that is different than outright blunders.

Good luck to everyone on this thread and have fun! If you have q's, I may be able to answer but just know that ages ago, I invested some time to chess and but am but a mediocre player.

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"A good stickgrappler has good stick skills, good grappling, and good stickgrappling and can keep track of all three simultaneously. This is a good trick and can be quite effective." - Marc "Crafty Dog" Denny

Re: Benoni Defense - it's a razor-sharp opening for Black vs a QP opening. Generally, Black should be tactical-minded. Interesting background which I didn't know... it's from a Hebrew term meaning 'son of sorrow'.

For beginners, for QP openings, learning the Queen's Gambit Declined variations or Queen's Gambit Accepted would be easier to learn than the Benko/Benoni as black.

Some other tips I neglected to mention:

Develop your pieces... do not 'fight with just one hand'... use your whole 'body' -- in the opening the general idea is to control the center as the King is still in the center... work to move pawns which clear the way to develop pieces.. generally you don't want to move your queen until you develop your other pieces... Castling is one of the best ways to get your rook into the center

Generally you want knights in center... they command more squares... you want rooks with open files... you want to double up your rooks... doubled-up rooks are more powerful than 1 queen, the rooks protect each other.

Know the point values of the pieces... this is a quick way for beginners to know if a trade of pieces is even or advantageous gain for yourself or for your opponent but be cognizant that sometimes if your opponent lost out on the trade with respect to value, it may be a precursor to a multi-move combo which will net him some advantage... easiest example is a mating attack, "sac a piece" (sacrifice) to open up position to hunt the king. Most chessplayers value a Bishop slightly more than a Knight, hence Bishop = 3.5 pts and knighs are valued as 3 pts. Queen is 9 pts, rooks are 5 pts (but doubled-up rooks are 10 pts, more than 1 queen), pawns are 1 pt (so roughly 3 pawns for 1 bishop/knight is fair trade, but doesn't take into consideration the position on the board)... the King has no numerical point value as it's the object of the game.

QP openings slightly slower-paced, KP openings are faster-paced... one opening I used to play as white was the English opening. The original idea was that if the Sicilian Defense (1 ... c5) was so good vs 1 e4, why not play it as a first move for White. Generally this opening is very positional as well as loads of transpositional possibilites.. if you play the English, you are being flexible, not quite imposing your will or committing too quickly... you want to see what Black will respond with, which may allow you to steer the opening to something that you find favorable/familiar. English opening can transpose to Queen's Gambit easily.

Another approach to learning chess... if for some reason you like a famous player, read up on his games, if not the player himself, someone would've collected his games into a book with analysis. Back when I was into chess, Anatoly Karpov and Garri Kasparov were the 2 top players. Kasparov was risk-taker and active attacker... Karpov was the Yin to Kasparov's Yang, Karpov was slow and methodical, playing like a machine. Compared to BJJ/MMA, it's like saying you like Rickson or Royce's style, slow and methodical, so you watch their fights and try to emulate them... or you like Randy Couture's dirty boxing/GnP style, you would work for the clinch etc.

"A good stickgrappler has good stick skills, good grappling, and good stickgrappling and can keep track of all three simultaneously. This is a good trick and can be quite effective." - Marc "Crafty Dog" Denny

Conrad always plays white against me. For quite some time he has focused on a QP opening. For a while I did well playing QB-4 in response, but eventually he solved that

Thought I helped you learn algebraic notation before? Old dogs didn't learn new tricks yet? Back to descriptive notation

Conrad plays 1 d4 (1 P-Q4) and you reply 1 ... c5 (1 ... P-QB4) ? His reply can be 2 d5 (2 P-Q5) commanding the center... but that can lead to the Benoni if you play 2 ... e6 (2 ... P-K3)

Eventually IMO Conrad should learn to play black... it's like the MA, only playing offense and no defense makes one a one-dimensional player. If Conrad plays anyone else but you, they may not be as accomodating to allow him to always play White.

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"A good stickgrappler has good stick skills, good grappling, and good stickgrappling and can keep track of all three simultaneously. This is a good trick and can be quite effective." - Marc "Crafty Dog" Denny

On a whim, I checked Google Books for free books to download (and can also be read online) for "Chess"... went through 15 pages of hits and the below books caught my eye due to name recognition of author and/or subject:

The only caveat to note is that these are old books, therefore, the chess notation used is Descriptive Notation and not the modern Algebraic Notation.

Enjoy!

edit: p.s. there were quite a few chess problems/puzzles books, I didn't check them out, but if they are in the vein of 'find the winning move' or 'mate in X amount of moves'... those types of books will sharpen your tactics up

« Last Edit: February 22, 2011, 11:48:29 AM by Stickgrappler »

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"A good stickgrappler has good stick skills, good grappling, and good stickgrappling and can keep track of all three simultaneously. This is a good trick and can be quite effective." - Marc "Crafty Dog" Denny

A rep for the family tells TMZ, "Peter Falk, 83-year-old Academy Award nominee and star of television series, 'Columbo', died peacefully at his Beverly Hills home in the evening of June 23, 2011."

The rep continued, "Peter Falk is survived by his wife, Shera, of 34 years and two daughters from a previous marriage."

In addition to "Columbo," Falk starred in "Princess Bride," "Brigadoon" and "The Great Race."

Peter's wife, Shera and daughter Catherine were locked in a legal battle in 2009 over the creation of a conservatorship for Peter and who would control it. In the end, the judge appointed Shera conservator.

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May Peter Falk meet Bobby Fischer and play chess forever.

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"A good stickgrappler has good stick skills, good grappling, and good stickgrappling and can keep track of all three simultaneously. This is a good trick and can be quite effective." - Marc "Crafty Dog" Denny

I brought a nice travelling set with me to Bern |(the board rolls up, classic Staunton design for the pieces) and set it up in open invitation in the dining area at the campground where we are holding the Euro Gg and Training Camp. A man in his 50s chatted with me briefly to size me up and then he said he had time for one game. My play was pretty solid for about 10 moves- I could tell he was good- and then I made one minor mistake and he stomped me with ruthless efficiency. I asked for another game and he readily agreed. Now fully aware of his level, I played much better, but the result was the same. He complimented me (in response to his Queen's pawn opening I had played an off center QB pawn gambit that I developed playing against my son) Shyly, to help assuage my feelings, he let me know he had been a professional player and had been the champion of Switzerland with a ranking of 2300! We played for about three hours more- or perhaps I should say he coached me for three hours. Awesome experience!

This morning I fooled around with the a PK4,KBP4 gambit operating under the assumption the gambit would be accepted. Who could resist such recklessly offered bait after all? Apparently the Russian I played with this evening. I could tell about 4 moves into declined gambit he played that he was good. Around move 12 I foolishly pushed a pawn to harass his knight and things went down hill from there.

Alerted by this experience to his level, I beat him in games 2 and 3

I kicked ass with a lesser player or two with it and then used it to good effect with a good player. Fortunately he gifted me a piece early in the game, which made things easier, especially as the quality of his play got very strong in the latter part of the game. I really had to struggle to get the win even though for a while I had a substantial advantage in pieces.

Initial impression: This opening seems very promising and a good fit to my temperament. Very aggressive AND unfamiliar to most people- which helps against quality players who have really studied openings while I am more or less winging it. With the KBP gambit, we are both winging it

I brought a nice travelling set with me to Bern |(the board rolls up, classic Staunton design for the pieces) and set it up in open invitation in the dining area at the campground where we are holding the Euro Gg and Training Camp. A man in his 50s chatted with me briefly to size me up and then he said he had time for one game. My play was pretty solid for about 10 moves- I could tell he was good- and then I made one minor mistake and he stomped me with ruthless efficiency. I asked for another game and he readily agreed. Now fully aware of his level, I played much better, but the result was the same. He complimented me (in response to his Queen's pawn opening I had played an off center QB pawn gambit that I developed playing against my son) Shyly, to help assuage my feelings, he let me know he had been a professional player and had been the champion of Switzerland with a ranking of 2300! We played for about three hours more- or perhaps I should say he coached me for three hours. Awesome experience!

That is awesome! That would be like me having a private with you in DBMA or with any of the masters! 2200+ is called "Master" rank... very very strong in terms of openings, middle games, tactics, strategy, mental stamina to keep at it as well as superstrong in endgames.

Logged

"A good stickgrappler has good stick skills, good grappling, and good stickgrappling and can keep track of all three simultaneously. This is a good trick and can be quite effective." - Marc "Crafty Dog" Denny

This morning I fooled around with the a PK4,KBP4 gambit operating under the assumption the gambit would be accepted. Who could resist such recklessly offered bait after all? Apparently the Russian I played with this evening. I could tell about 4 moves into declined gambit he played that he was good. Around move 12 I foolishly pushed a pawn to harass his knight and things went down hill from there.

Alerted by this experience to his level, I beat him in games 2 and 3

I kicked ass with a lesser player or two with it and then used it to good effect with a good player. Fortunately he gifted me a piece early in the game, which made things easier, especially as the quality of his play got very strong in the latter part of the game. I really had to struggle to get the win even though for a while I had a substantial advantage in pieces.

Initial impression: This opening seems very promising and a good fit to my temperament. Very aggressive AND unfamiliar to most people- which helps against quality players who have really studied openings while I am more or less winging it. With the KBP gambit, we are both winging it

This is the "King's Gambit". I used to play this opening but I didn't delve that deeply into it after hearing at the GM/Master levels it's usually draws, or at least back when I played, not sure if there were recent innovations to it. It was in Bobby Fischer's repertoire, it is usually attack-oriented, gambiting a pawn early to facilitate rapid deployment of your forces which was precisely why I played it against from friends. Around the time I played, it's said the GM's used this opening to secure a draw instead of playing a riskier opening and chancing a loss. It became more positional play for them. At which point, the opening probably fell out of favor in upper-level play.

Ages ago, we discussed Chess, I don't remember, did I send you a King's Gambit book? Although it was dated, it should have given you a basic understanding of the opening and the various lines of gam

Too bad I was so beat last year after Guro Hunt's hosting of you, I had to go home to wife and kids and I suspect you wouldn't have time for a few quick games. And mentally my head was spinning from the material you taught those 2 days, so I probably wouldn't have played my sharpest LOL

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Around move 12 I foolishly pushed a pawn to harass his knight and things went down hill from there.

One concept I learned early on... pawn structure is very important because pawns cannot move backwards... once a pawn is pushed it changes the dynamics of the position. Andy Soltis back in da day had a good book about it, IIRC, "Pawn Structure Chess"... Aron Nimzovich, wrote a book called "My System", he was one of the Fathers of the Hypermodern School of chess (attack from flanks and not the center... he wrote a bit on pawn structure in that book. Haven't looked at a chess book in ages, not sure if there are other and better books out there, but Nimzovich teaches about pawn chains and how to break them, where to attack...

Against the KP opening, the French Defense (1 e4 e6 2 d4 d5) and the Caro-Kann defense (1 e4 c6 2 d4 d5) will be about pawn chains and of course for the QP openings, the Queen's Gambit are all about pawn chains.

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Fortunately he gifted me a piece early in the game, which made things easier, especially as the quality of his play got very strong in the latter part of the game. I really had to struggle to get the win even though for a while I had a substantial advantage in pieces.

Not sure of the position, but sometimes despite one player's advantage of having an extra piece, his forces are not coordinated in their efforts to attack the enemy King... and if you were up a piece, perhaps your opponent was able to take some pawns as compensation... a knight/bishop is worth roughly 3 pawns/3.5 pawns... a rook = 5 pawns. One general strategy is if you are up a piece, look to trade pieces and when the dust settles, you would have a clear advantage with your extra piece. Quoting a wise man I know, despite this quote not coming from chess, it is apt: "WHEN YOU HAVE ADVANTAGE, TAKE ADVANTAGE!" (for the lurkers, that's Guro Crafty's quote in DBMA) Of course, this presupposes your endgames are decent already (knowing how to create a passed pawn, how to activate your king to help protect the passed pawn, ...). Be sure you know the basic mating patterns also.

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"A good stickgrappler has good stick skills, good grappling, and good stickgrappling and can keep track of all three simultaneously. This is a good trick and can be quite effective." - Marc "Crafty Dog" Denny

Josh Waitzkin should be no stranger to chess enthusiasts as well as MAists (chess prodigy, subject of the book and movie, Searching for Bobby Fischer, as well World Champ in Push hands competition, student of William CC Chen, and also a brown belt under Marcelo Garcia BJJ)... he "teaches" chess in Chessmaster: Art of Learning. There are various strength levels of your opponents... options for quick play, rated play with or without a chess clock. There are also chess 'games' where it's not standard chess, but IMO it develops aspects of one's chess game... one of them is to use a knight to capture pieces randomly placed on board... another helps your combinations, etc

If you have 2 DS's, you can play vs live opponent, although, at that point, if i had the space and board/pieces, would not prefer to play it on the DS.

Guessing other portable gaming systems should have a chess game on it.

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"A good stickgrappler has good stick skills, good grappling, and good stickgrappling and can keep track of all three simultaneously. This is a good trick and can be quite effective." - Marc "Crafty Dog" Denny

"A good stickgrappler has good stick skills, good grappling, and good stickgrappling and can keep track of all three simultaneously. This is a good trick and can be quite effective." - Marc "Crafty Dog" Denny

Let's consider the short-lived but brutal rivalry of Waitzkin vs. Waitzkin. For the first two months of my chess life, my father and I played nearly every day. We had some terrific battles. Dad thought he was pretty good and in our games he never held back. Some afternoons he beat me three or four times and afterwards I felt numb. But by the next day, after school, I was ready to fight him again. We must have played a hundred games before I finally beat him. After that, our competition changed in almost every respect. I recall that after my first win Dad was thrilled ... but this didn’t last. For the next couple of weeks, as I began to win more often, he read chess books to get the upper hand. He was terribly proud of my chess ability, but at the same time he seemed frustrated. He didn't like losing to me. For my part, I didn't really want to play him so much anymore. I felt uneasy about checkmating my own father, but for an uncomfortable several weeks or so, we kept playing until he realized that this competition was not very good for either of us.

We would square off seated on the floor on opposite sides of a stubby-legged coffee table in the living room of our apartment. I couldn't quite reach all the way across the board and on long moves more often than not knocked over half the pieces. More than once, Dad suggested that I did this after he had built a winning position. Maybe this was so. For sure, Dad couldn't reconstruct the position once it was scrambled, and in those early games of my career I was at my wit's end trying not to lose.

Anyhow, at the time of the following game, I had turned the tables on Dad and was winning most of our games. By now he had become a little gun-shy. In this game he figured he'd play it safe and copy my moves surely if his position were identical to mine nothing terrible would happen to him. Lots of beginners try the copycat strategy, but it is a critical error.

I had noticed that my father was copying my moves up to this point, so I set a little trap. You might try to find it.

Waitzkin-Waitzkin, 1983

HINT: I figured that his predictability would persist and his next two moves would be ... Nxf3 and Bh3. The question to ask yourself is: how can I change my position so that after he copies me I can take advantage?

I played 11.Kh1 ! and he played right into my hands:

11 ... Nf3 12.gf3 Bh3?

Now I used the small difference in the positions to win Black's queen. What did I play?

HINT: Notice that Black's king is exposed to check on the g-file, while my king is safely tucked away behind the h-pawn. The rook can escape the bishop's attack and check the king, gaining a tempo. Then, check and check to win the queen.

I played 13.Rg1 +! Kh8 14.Bg7+ Kg8 15.Bf6+ (discovered check-the bishop has moved away exposing the king to the rook's attack. This is a double threat because the bishop is also attacking the black queen. We will look at these concepts again and again.) 15 . .. Kf8 16.Bxd8, and White is up a queen. Soon after this my father and I stopped battling on the coffee table.

In my chess life my father moved very quickly from major rival to passionate coach. He had misgivings about our early slugfests and would be the first person to say that unless your little kid is very, very good, don't try to beat him every game. Chances are, repeated thrashings will kill his or her love for chess rather than kindle it.

As a coach, my father was terribly earnest about my early games, and I believe that this helped instill in me a sense for the importance of chess. When I was eight or nine and had suffered a bad defeat, he would not talk about chess moves. He would say to me things like, "You know, Josh, instead of looking at the game you were looking all around the room." Even today he watches my face and body English for clues about the quality of my focus. Before important tournaments we talk a lot about the kinds of things I must do to bring myself into top form, and afterwards we try to figure out what I might have done better: Did I study enough? Too much? Did I study the wrong material? Had I done enough physical training before the tournament? Had I slept enough? This, I believe, is the best way for a coach or a parent to help a young player. I am always appalled when I hear a frustrated dad scolding his four-foot son for playing queen to h6 instead of rook to a7. I wonder if that parent believes that he is helping his little warrior. His chess player will play brilliantly and make mistakes in the course of learning to attack and defend. It is the role of a parent to bring a healthy, well-rested child to the game, and then to focus on the psychological aspects of chess: to encourage good concentration, coolness under pressure, stamina, and patience to turn an advantage into a win. Sometimes a dad or mom should be no more than a shoulder to lean on, someone with a strong, fresh perspective. Life goes on. You win and you lose. You'll get 'em next time. Let's go get an ice cream cone.

SG's note: I scanned and OCR'd the pages... please forgive me for any typos and/or spacing I may have missed.

« Last Edit: July 26, 2011, 06:39:33 AM by Stickgrappler »

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"A good stickgrappler has good stick skills, good grappling, and good stickgrappling and can keep track of all three simultaneously. This is a good trick and can be quite effective." - Marc "Crafty Dog" Denny

After that happened to me a few times, my standard MO when posting on forums is to copy my post BEFORE i click POST... and if it didn't take, paste post and hit POST.

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For Guro and lurkers,

Diagrams posted

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"A good stickgrappler has good stick skills, good grappling, and good stickgrappling and can keep track of all three simultaneously. This is a good trick and can be quite effective." - Marc "Crafty Dog" Denny

Magnus Carlsen's Parents on Raising the World's Best Chess PlayerThe family of the unmatched chess prodigy gave him time to find his passion, but never went easy on himBy Alex ClarkJune 26, 2014 2:26 p.m. ET

CHECK MATES | Magnus, at his office in Oslo, with his mother, Sigrun, and father, Henrik, a keen chess player himself who developed his son's skills at an early age by not playing down to his level. Photography by Colin Dodgson for WSJ. Magazine

HOW DO YOU SPOT a chess prodigy? Is there a moment—perhaps when he makes a boldly brilliant move out of nowhere or plasters his bedroom with pinups of Bobby Fischer and Garry Kasparov—when it all becomes clear?

Well, that wasn't quite how it happened for Henrik Carlsen and Sigrun Øen, parents of 23-year-old Magnus Carlsen, the Norwegian who became a grandmaster at 13 and the youngest-ever world No. 1 at 19, and whose peak World Chess Federation rating (2,882) is the highest in history. Last November, Carlsen defeated Viswanathan Anand to become the World Chess Champion, a title he will defend against Anand later this year in a yet-to-be-decided location—possibly Norway.

World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen gives a thoughtful interview about his life in chess...and then he beats WSJ's Jonathan Zalman in about thirty seconds.

Carlsen's route to chess took a little longer than his subsequent stellar progression might suggest. Henrik, 52, a keen chess player himself, remembers introducing the game to Magnus and his older sister, Ellen, now 25, when his son was turning 5. But after a month or two, Henrik says, "I gave up, basically, in the sense that we continued to play chess occasionally, but I didn't have any ambitions." He knew that legendary players such as Capablanca and Kasparov had understood the game—he clicks his fingers—"just like that." Magnus and his sister, he says, "learned the rules quickly, and they could capture a piece, but to get two or more pieces working together, which is what chess is about, this spatial vision took a long time."

At the time, Henrik reconciled himself to the fact that chess would simply be an enjoyable family pastime. "I felt, OK, they're definitely not geniuses, but it doesn't matter. Because, I mean, we loved our children. Chess was something we could do together, just a hobby, like playing cards or anything else." In the meantime, there were signs that Magnus had the aptitude and the determination to perform impressive mental feats. Sigrun, 51, recalls her son sitting for hours with puzzles or making advanced Lego models, patiently working his way through pages and pages of instructions meant for children a decade older. "He had the ability to sit for a very long time, even when he was small," she recalls.

This quality has contributed in no small measure to his success; chess commentators draw attention to his ability to wear down opponents, to wait patiently for them to make the tiniest mistake. Magnus himself maintains that he is an aggressive player but that audacity isn't always what's called for. "When you play against the best people in the world, they see through your plans, and you cannot win with a swashbuckling attack all the time," he says. "You just need to take what's there."

His parents are eager to point out that he wasn't an obviously faster learner than his sisters (he also has two younger siblings, Ingrid, 20, and Signe, 17) but that he kept on going, focusing his attention on a specific subject, such as car brands, until he knew it inside out. When I ask Magnus about his childhood proficiency, he replies simply: "I didn't particularly know if I was good at it or not; I just tried to do it."

“ "I felt, OK, they're definitely not geniuses, but it doesn't matter. Chess was something we could do together, just a hobby." ” —–Henrik Carlsen

Then came a turning point. Just before Magnus turned 8, says Henrik, "Ellen suddenly understood enough to make it interesting for me to play with her." Magnus would sit to watch them and, a little later, join in. Henrik's dilemma was that if he adopted poor strategy, his children wouldn't learn anything, but he also didn't want them to become discouraged. So he began to play with limited resources—just his king and a pawn—slowly adding pieces as they learned the game. Magnus's interest started to grow, although Henrik maintains that "he just wanted to beat his sister." He had a competitive streak even as a small child? "Yes, absolutely," Sigrun says, "he still has that." More competitive than his sisters? "Absolutely." She laughs and gestures to her husband. "It's not from me, it's from him!"

Soon he was entering and very quickly winning tournaments. At home, during dinner, he began sitting apart from the family so he could study his chessboard while eating. "He was in the same room," remembers Sigrun, "so we could speak to him if we wanted to; he could hear what we were talking about if he wanted to join." Despite their unorthodox meals, they were, and remain, a close family.Enlarge Image

There's a particular bond between father and son, forged through a mutual love of chess. When Magnus was 12, Henrik took a year's leave of absence from his job (he has spent recent years balancing his consultancy work in the oil industry with managing Magnus's affairs) and took the children out of school so they could travel together throughout Europe, an experience that Magnus remembers as "more useful than staying in school that year." Now, he says, he realizes that a certain family resemblance is developing. "I think I'm becoming more like my father in a way," he says, laughing. "I'm cracking the same lame jokes!" Many sons probably find themselves saying the same thing, but in the Carlsens' case, there's another dimension. "Whenever I lose," Magnus explains, "usually I want to be alone, figure it out. A couple of times I've lost and I've been complaining to my father about it, and he says, 'Just get up and stop whining.' I think that's the best advice I ever got."

Sigrun, an engineer like her husband, is not a chess player, although she's started to dabble with Play Magnus, an app that allows you to test your skills against the champion at various stages in his career. She describes herself as an introvert and dislikes the attention Magnus's celebrity has brought, particularly when people approach him in the street. This happens even more now that he is modeling for clothing company G-Star Raw, whose most recent ad campaign features him playing chess with the British model-actress Lily Cole. (Henrik remembers the reaction of Magnus's sisters when his career took a turn toward fashion modeling: "He got a lot of credit for that. They thought, OK, now you're getting somewhere!")

Although Sigrun insists that she's not starstruck by all the attention heaped on Magnus ("I really don't think so much about him as a world champion in chess," she says, "because he's my son"), she did have to work through an emotional barrier when he was 9 years old and starting to compete regularly. As she watched him play in a match, all Sigrun could see was a little boy who looked unhappy, hunched over a board as if he were struggling. Naturally, all she wanted to do was take him home. Afterward, she asked him if the contest had been painful for him. He looked at her with a blank, uncomprehending stare. No, he replied, he'd been having fun and was merely lost in thought. Now, says Sigrun, "I just want him to be happy. And as long as he's happy, he can do whatever he wants."